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It's win or go home time for the Fighting Colts

SILVER CITY — It’s win or go home for the Silver High School football team. The Fighting Colts will hit the road to face Shiprock in the first round of the Class 4A New Mexico High School State Football Championships.

SILVER CITY — It’s win or go home for the Silver High School football team. The Fighting Colts will hit the road to face Shiprock in the first round of the Class 4A New Mexico High School State Football Championships.

Shiprock is the No. 7 seed and its record is 7-3 overall. The last three games played have been big wins as the squad has beaten Wingate (50-0), Thoreau (45-0) and Navajo Prep (47-0). One of its losses came to Socorro (42-0) at the beginning of the year.

Silver is 4-6 overall and the No. 10 seed. The Colts are coming off a bye week, but before that beat Socorro, 32-20.

“They are going to try and spread the field on us,” coach Raul Diaz said. “They are going to utilize trips and doubles and go with an empty backfield. They like to throw the football.”

Diaz added that his defense will need to line up correctly and be fast and aggressive on the field.

“We need to get to their quarterback before he can throw the football,” Diaz said. “If we can do that, we can force them to do some things they don’t want to do.”

Shiprock’s defense is a 4-4, cover 3, but the squad likes to disguise packages and move around a lot.

“We can’t have any turnovers on offense,” Diaz said. “We are going to try and run the ball and make them stop that first.”

Practice has been going good for Silver and Diaz said with the time change, the team has had to go under the lights and that has been a good change of pace.

“Our practices have been fast and quick,” Diaz said. “We are having fun and getting it done. The atmosphere has changed.”

The Colts will have to handle the long road trip north. Diaz said the team will leave Friday morning and then stop in Albuquerque to eat before a stop in Cuba to workout. The team will stay in Farmington before facing Shiprock at 1 p.m., Saturday.

“We know we are going to their home and we are going to have to start playing and executing right away,” Diaz said. “We respect them, and we know we are going to have to play our best football in order to move on. It’s win or go home.”